


Dream-Lovers

by sans_patronymic



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Hiatus, Illnesses, Multi, Oral Sex, POV John Watson, Pining, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 18:50:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7769101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An illness reveals to Watson the truth of his desires. Love is unconquerable, even when things are not always as they appear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream-Lovers

How does a man come to know his own heart? There are some mysteries which are hidden even from his mind, some desires and yearnings which only the most exceptional or dire of circumstances can draw out. Love is one such secret. Its targets are diverse, its force, unconquerable, and though we are told it should unite but two souls, it may sometimes ensnare more.

I love my wife. I am unashamed to announce it. So, too, do I love my dear friend, Sherlock Holmes, in more than a fraternal order. My love for one does not diminish my love for the other. If anything, they fan each other’s flames; if I am content in the company of one, how much nicer to be enveloped in them both? What delight to bask in the warmth of affection from those two hearts whose rhythms guide my own. I am the happiest man when both sets of arms are about me, when both sets of lips pronounce their love against my flesh. It is an inescapable truth, though I have come to learn it only through great trial. A secret I had kept from myself until a gloomy bout of ‘flu drew it from me.

I had been ill for some time. It is difficult to say for how long—fever was part of it, and fever made time blur together. Yesterday with today, today with last week. It must have been quite a while, though, because the flowers on the dressing table kept changing. I was well enough to notice that, at least, Holmes should have been very proud to know.

At first, I thought I might have caught my illness from Mary. She was ill for so very long, and I tended to her so diligently, it stood to reason I might. Yet, the more I thought about it—and when a man is on bedrest there is little to do besides thinking—the more likely it seemed to be something I had picked up with Holmes on the continent. Foreign lands held foreign viruses, and traveling could put such a strain on the body, after all.

I had not been ill straight away upon our return from Switzerland, but I am—had been, rather, so awfully tired. Leadened limbs, foggy mind, these could have been signs some disease was incubating inside me. Yes, I am sure that must have been it. Mary must have thought so too; she became dismissive of Holmes after our sojourn; she did not like to hear me speak of him, and she ignored him whenever he appeared at our door. Misplaced blame, no doubt. Why, I even recall her turning him away one evening, when I was in particularly low spirits and had sent myself to bed early with a headache…

_“It’s out of the question. Doctor Watson is in no condition to see anyone,” a voice had called. Mary’s voice, surely, ever watchful over me. Caring for me then as I would for her in the days to come; we had said ‘in sickness and in health’, had we not?_

_Holmes, at the door, irritated, impassioned: “My dear Mrs. Watson, I should not disturb him were it not of the utmost importance. I assure you the matter is quite urgent. A man’s life hangs in the balance!”_

_“So it does, indeed. My husband is not well; he needs rest.”_

My heart still leaps to hear the words ‘my husband’ cross her lips.

_“My dear—“_

_The groan of the front door, sagging heavy on its hinges. “Thank you for your well wishes, Mr. Holmes. John will be so glad you called.”_

_Hail Mary, full of tact, tough as brass, closing the door on England’s greatest detective._

That was before her illness—or was it after? I recall treating her, wiping her brow, helping her to the lavatory, reading to her at night. Her rattling cough still echoes in my mind. Her smile had been a tremor against her sallow cheeks. It makes my heart sink to picture it. I had been well when I tended to her, a heavy heart but no heavy limbs. Or had I been ill all along? Perhaps I had recovered, only to fall back into the clutches of this infernal fever. It made a petty jumble of the precious jewels of memory.

However the chronology fell prior, I know for certain it was after Mary’s recovery that I took for the worse. I became so I could hardly move or speak. I had seen little of Holmes, and even my wife became a stranger to me. She is a brave and kind soul, and I am sure her absence was not any negligence on her part, yet it pained me greatly. I saw her rarely, only a fleeting glimpse as I woke to the touch of her cool hand upon my brow, her fine fingers caressing my cheek. Try as I might, I had no strength to call out to her, to ask her to stay by my side, to share my sickbed. Had I asked, she would have been wrong to accept, herself only recently convalesced, yet of all my symptoms, loneliness pained me most of all.

In the solitary hours of the night, I would imagine my arms about her delicate frame, the tiny flutter of her bird’s heart beating in her chest. Night after night, I drifted out of consciousness to the feel my lips against hers, and the smell of gardenia and tuberose in my mind. Some nights, too, when the fever was worst and the isolation bleakest, I would conjure Holmes beside us as well, a bedfellow again as we had been in youth. Tobacco mingled with the tuberose; Holmes’s long arms draped around me. I saw no harm in such imaginings. Sandwiched between my dearest wife and my dearest friend, I admit I fell sweetly into a pleasant sleep.

Time trickled by—the flowers on the dressing table renewed themselves again and again—yet my illness did not improve. It seems a foolish thing, a doctor needing a doctor, but a doctor was called for all the same. I might have protested, had Mary not loomed in the doorway with a warning glare. _Listen to what he has to say_ , her eyes instructed me. What man could argue with eyes like hers? And so I turned myself over to the care of Doctor Miller, to be poked, and prodded, and asked all those embarrassing details which I know to be medically relevant, yet are still uncomfortable to disclose.

Doctor Miller. When Holmes heard his name, he had quite a chuckle.

“A man whose name is two professions cannot possibly be counted on to do either,” he said with that glint in his eye when he has amused himself.

I laughed rather too hard at that. I missed Holmes’s company so, I think I should have laughed at anything he labeled a jest. Say what one will of Doctor Miller’s taxonomy, my health improved under his care. My strength returned, and my friend with it. Holmes was again welcomed in our home, and I rejoiced to sit with him, even if it was only a brief spell, to have his voice echo through my home and watch the animation of his hands in the firelight as he told me of his latest case.

My darling Mary once more became mine. I had been deprived of her, it felt, for so long. I delighted merely to catch a glimpse of her with her needlepoint in the parlour, or to hear her call my name from down the hall. Our intimacy was slow to recover. It took weeks, it seemed, for me to recall the proper way to kiss her, to relearn the curves of her body, the softness of her flesh. It was very much a labour of love, and she did not mind the effort.

Yet, try as we did, our affection did not feel quite right.To my great guilt and shame, when she returned to my bed, I thought it still incomplete. My mind played cruel tricks upon me. In the midst of our carnal embrace, bits and pieces of her seemed to transform into my friend: her gentle hand I imagined with mottled, spider-like fingers; to brush her cheek, I felt the prickling sting of stubble; the scent of her perfume fused with that of aftershave and tobacco. The fever had revealed to me a worrisome reality: I longed for Holmes to join us both.

I tried, at first, to hide it. But when it comes to matters of the heart, Mary is as clever as Holmes. The both of them know me better than I know myself.

“Won’t you tell me what’s troubling you?” Mary asked me one day as I stood before the mirror, failing for the forth time to knot my tie.

My eyes turned from the tie to her image in the mirror, her head hovering just above my shoulder. The sight of her arrested me. Her eyes, so bright, so ernest, held fast to my own. The morning light caught her golden hair just so. She glowed, ethereal as any angel.

Slowly, her hands came over my shoulders, and, straining on her toes, she managed my tie for me. When she had done, she kissed my cheek and I blurted my confession: That as much as I loved her, so too did I love Holmes. That in our early acquaintance we had known one another as she and I now did. That I missed the feel of him, the touch of his lips, his hands upon me and mine upon him. That I wished—no, wanted—no, _needed_ —to share and be shared between them both.

She did not seem surprised in the least. Gently taking my left hand in both of hers, she kissed my palm and brought it to rest against her cheek.

“ _That_ is no trouble. You had me worried it was something dreadful.”

Hail Mary, full of compassion. Was this not the same man that she had once dismissed from our door? That led me off at odd hours of the night into who-knew-what danger? Yet, when I asked for him to share our bed her eyes brightened and she gave her blessing.

As much as Mary's acceptance shocked me, I should have thought Holmes would have been far more difficult to convince. He never expressed any interest in women, and while our friendship has remained quite sound, our physical affair had ended many years ago and on rather mean terms. When I made my proposal to him, I was sure to keep Mary out of the room, in case Holmes should respond with cruel remarks, or a right hook. I had prepared myself for many reactions, but, as ever, I could not anticipate he would answer me as he did, not with a blow, but with a very tender kiss.

“Oh, my dear man,” he purred against my ear. “I should be delighted.”

“You—you would?” stammered I.

“Naturally.” He was standing now, tugging on his gloves and gathering his coat. “It should make for a very curious experiment, and, as you should know, my fondness for you has never faded. Goodnight, old boy.”

With that, he vanished from the room, leaving me to stare open-mouthed at the fireplace.

When the appointed day arrived for what Holmes had dubbed ‘the experiment’ and what Mary called ‘our fun’, I suddenly began to have my doubts. Loose, intangible fantasies are one thing, easily dismissed and forgotten, this would be quite another. What if one of them should disgust the other? What if, for all my boasting of desire, I should be too overwhelmed to be useful? When the three of us found ourselves within my bedroom—the door locked, the shades drawn—I found I could do little more than sit upon the edge of the bed, twirling my thumbs anxiously.

As nervous as I was, Holmes and Mary were the picture of calm. They giggled and taunted me for my embarrassment, smirking at one another as if they had some wicked plan in store for me. To my very pleasant surprise, they did.

“No! Do not move—merely observe, my good man,” commanded Holmes, he and Mary standing before me. What man can deny that voice?

I had no choice but to watch as they undressed. Holmes was slow, methodical. First one cuff, then the other, moving with a pacific air as if he were the only man in the room. An act, surely, but an act that gave the naughty thrill of watching what one oughtn’t. To the right of him, Mary, cheeks flushing, perhaps a bit embarrassed after all, though she hid it behind a coquettish smirk. A wanton twirl of the hips, dropped her skirts to the floor with a burlesque flourish. Bit by bit, they revealed themselves to me.

Holmes helped Mary to unfasten her corset, and he was rewarded with a kiss for his efforts. As their lips met, Holmes’s hand cupped one of her breasts, the other grabbing hold of her arse. Mary’s squeal of delight sent a bolt of desire through me. I palmed myself through my trousers, already hard and aching for them both.

“Does that calm the nerves, Doctor?” asked Mary, teasingly.

She and Holmes joined me on the bed, peeling my clothing from me and covering each inch of newly exposed skin with their kisses. I soon found myself on my back, my hands full of Mary’s perfect arse, my tongue swirling against the rich, velvet warmth of her cunt, while Holmes’s mouth enveloped my arousal.

I endeavored to move my tongue in time with Holmes’s own undulations, to communicate to her the peerless ways he knew to please. Her hand came down from the headboard to grip my hair, pressing herself down against me. Holmes had paused his efforts with his mouth and I knew from the distracted way his hand moved along my length he was watching us. Mary was close, I could tell from the tremor in her thighs, and I followed her urgings, now swirling, now sucking, now hurrying until she shook against me. As her moans gave way to sighs, I drew my face away to catch my breath and admire the flushed, pulsing look of her. I kissed the trembling lips above me and she gasped.

“The mustache tickles,” she protested and fell back into Holmes’s waiting arms.

He guided her down my body, until she straddled my thighs. I watched as his hands coursed over her, along hips, across breasts, between her legs. His touches were heavy, slow, drawing her from orgasm back to arousal. Mary’s hand dipped behind her back to stroke him, just as Holmes’s fingers steered my prick towards her, slathering my cockhead in her drippings, guiding me against the swollen core of her pleasure. When she was ready, I slipped inside her with a moan.

“Come here,” I said to Holmes as my wife began to ride my cockstand. “I want to taste you, too.”

Holmes called me wicked and worse, smirking all the while. He obliged, and as his prick slipped between my lips I heard Mary say she was glad for something to hold on to—Holmes's shoulders, I assume, as the angle of her hips shifted. My mouth swallowed him in time with Mary’s hips. I will teach them both the joys of the other, if it takes a thousand years of trying.

As my pleasure mounted, my concentration tarried, though neither of my partners seemed able to notice: Mary working herself against my cock, using me as a tool for pleasure, and Holmes, his fingers curled tightly in my hair, fighting the urge to thrust into my mouth, and I aquiver beneath them both. Surely, no man has known a sweeter paradise. Their tastes mingled; their scents mingled; their moans mingles; their hands chased one another across my body. Every bit of them fused and coursed over me in a swirl of senses. Our congress was a unity, with power beyond words. A blinding whiteness, a pleasure rippling and absolute.

Afterwards, the three of us curled beneath the sheets, a tangle of limbs awash with love and the torpor of spilt ecstasy. Holmes would stay for the night, of course, and we nestled against the pillows and one another, the lamp light low and glowing.

“Won’t you read me something, John?” asked Mary, laying her head upon my shoulder.

“Yes, _us_ , read _us_ something,” Holmes corrected, sitting up to light his cigarette.

“I thought you didn’t care for ‘sensationalist literature,’ Mr. Holmes,” teased Mary, passing me a book from the bedside table. It was one of her favorites, a volume of occult mysteries with a decidedly Orientalist bent.

Holmes reclined against my side—I was once again positioned between them—and admired the frontispiece.

“My dear Mrs. Watson, you must know by now that most of what your husband writes about me is greatly exaggerated. I can enjoy a good story the same as the rest of you mortals.”

Mary gave me a look of feigned exasperation, lips cracking into a smile. “Go ahead, John, read this next one. ‘The Ring of Set’, very ominous-sounding.”

And so, I began to read, Mary tucked against my chest, Holmes leaning on my other side, cigarette in hand. A good book in my hands, my wife and dearest friend at my flanks, I felt indomitable, buoyed by so much affection. I hardly made it through the first paragraph before Holmes interrupted:

"I know what happened."

"How could you _possibly_ know what happened? He's only read three sentences."

“I know what happened,” Holmes redoubled, extinguishing his cigarette and looking quite mysterious.

Mary rolled her eyes and gave me another private smirk. “Oh, you do _not,_ you big liar.”

“Best not to doubt him,” I cautioned her, “it only makes him insufferable.”

For that, Holmes gave me a very sound pinch in the ribs.

“I am not lying. To be sporting about it, I shall write down my answer on this bit of foolscap here.” Holmes leaned across the bedside table and took a page of my notes, scribbling something in the margins before placing it, face down, beneath the ashtray. “Afterwards, we shall see whether or not I am right.”

Holmes looked very pleased with himself for his theatrics, and my ribs smarted from his pinch. I thought it perfectly just to find his leg beneath the covers and give his thigh a firm squeeze. He squirmed, and we might have found ourselves in an amative tussle, had Mary not prodded my shoulder.

“Carry on, darling, I want to hear the rest of it.”

"Very well—“

The tale revolved around the murder of an Egyptian museum clerk and the disappearance of the Ring of Set, purported to have sacred powers and afflicted with a terrible curse that struck any who would seek to use it, save it’s rightful master. The long-suffering narrator, a British antiquities dealer who, for reasons that were not entirely logical, was the chief investigator of this mystery, made a rather good show of his Egyptological knowledge, and (in Holmes’s very loud opinion) a very poor showing as a detective. However, in spite his dubious qualifications, the humble narrator managed to uncover that the true power of the Ring of Set was the greed it inspired. The whole affair boiled down to a corrupt local bishop, bent on increasing his already priceless collection of artifacts belonging to an ancient, cultish sect, apparently still operating its sinister magics in the back alleys of Cairo to this day. The bishop, who had had the museum clerk killed during the theft of the ring, died of a heavy-handed bout of poetic justice: crushed in a collapsing tomb, still clutching the Ring of Set in his hands, buried forever beneath stone and sand.

When the story finished, Mary and I looked up to see Holmes’s face split with a grin that reached nearly from one ear to the other. The paper with his prediction was stretched between both his hands like a winning racing ticket. If handwriting could be prideful, it read in proud letters: _The Bishop is responsible._ Mary dissolved into laughter and I merely shook my head in disbelief.

“All right.” I conceded to ask what I knew Holmes was longing to hear: "how did you know?"

"Oh, it was really too simple. You would have known it yourself in my place."

I arched a brow while Mary leaned forward expectantly. 

"You'll laugh when I tell you, really."

"Oh, get on with it, you peacock." 

"Well... I knew instantly what happened for the very simple reason that I've read that one before."

At that, I guffawed. A pillow flew, Mary’s doing, and hit Holmes squarely in the face. Holmes’s eyes once more shone with that self-satisfied glimmer. My heart glowed with love.

“I cannot tell you both how glad I am to have you here," I began with sudden ernest. "Such an odd, illicit request, and you have embraced it so… I have missed you both so terribly.”

As I spoke, the room grew grayer and more dim. My arms began to feel less certain of the warm bodies they wrapped around. The smell of Holmes’s cigarette faded, as did Mary’s perfume. Holmes’s hands began to unravel, all of him swirling away and dwindling into the air like smoke. The light in Mary’s flaxen hair began to wane, and her eyes grew sad and pale.

“Oh, John,” I heard her say, echoing through my mind as the last of her image disappeared.

I was once more, alone. My fever was gone, and with it, my illusions. Holmes, of course, had not returned with me from our fateful trip to Switzerland. We had never laughed about poor Doctor Miller. I had heard no more about his incredible deductions, for he would solve no more cases. My dear Mary had never recovered from her illness. The halls did not sing with her laughter. I would never again awake to the touch of her hand, or a kiss from her lips. My confession of love had been whispered only to ears of the dead. My realization, too late to be anything more than this hopeless fantasy.

The fire burned low in the grate. The book of mystery stories lay in my lap. The paper on my bedside table held no marginalia that spoke of the guilty bishop. There was no cigarette in the ashtray, no smell of gardenia or tuberose in the air. On the dressing table, the flowers in the vase had wilted and died.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Charles Lamb's "Dream-Children".](http://www.bartleby.com/195/5.html)
> 
> The story Watson reads is loosely-based on [Sax Rohmer's _Tales of Secret Egypt_.](https://archive.org/details/talesofsecretegy00rohm)


End file.
